I just found this article - it's almost 2 yrsold - but good -
this Xylitol is in too many products, but if you look at
their website they say it is safe
- no mention that it is not safe for dogs
Common sweetener xylitol deadly for dogs : County News : Boulder Daily Camera
Common sweetener xylitol deadly for dogs
In past year, Boulder clinic has treated one dog who ate sugarless gum
Jeff Nesmith, Cox News Service
Saturday, September 30, 2006
WASHINGTON — Xylitol, a sugar substitute used in chewing gum, candy, toothpaste and other products, can kill dogs that eat it, and the frequency of cases seems to be growing.
Animal poison specialists alerted veterinarians and pet owners Saturday that cases of accidental dog poisonings are apt to be more frequent as xylitol is added to more and more human products.
A dog that consumes as little as a few sticks of chewing gum sweetened with xylitol should be taken to a veterinarian immediately, said Eric Dunayer and Sharon Gwaltney-Brant in an article in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
"Dogs respond to xylitol differently than humans," Dunayer said in a telephone interview, "and it seems to overwhelm their liver."
He added that a person typically absorbs about 50 percent of xylitol that has been used as a sweetener, but dogs seem to absorb almost 100 percent.
Promoted as a "natural sugar product," xylitol does not stimulate peaks in insulin production that plague victims of Type II diabetes after they have consumed sugar or large quantities of carbohydrates.
There are also indications that it does not cause — and may even inhibit — tooth decay.
But when a 63-pound Welsh springer spaniel recently gobbled up four large chocolate muffins that contained the sweetener, the results were gruesome, said Dunayer and Gwaltney-Brant in the journal article.
After three days of bloody diarrhea, vomiting and vital signs that hovered around emergency levels, the animal died.
A 3-year-old, 70-pound standard poodle ate five or six cookies, became ill 24 hours later and died the next day. A 16-pound Scottish terrier ate 30 pieces of gum and died five days later.
A 71-pound Labrador retriever ate a pound of xylitol powder and, after severe illness, recovered.
The two specialists at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' poison control center in Urbana, Ill., say they had three cases of xylitol poisoning in 2003, followed in 2004 by 82 cases, 193 cases last year and, during the first half of this year, 140 cases.
Few veterinarians elsewhere appeared to know about the dangers of xylitol — or had not encountered cases in which dogs had been eaten it.
But a Boulder-based animal doctor said Saturday that she came across one case of xylitol poisoning in the past year. A male Labrador was rushed to the Boulder Emergency Pet Clinic, 1658 30th St., after getting into a pack of sugarless gum that contained the sugar substitute, said doctor Katie Reese.
She said dogs that consume the product can exhibit symptoms of depression and "drunk walking." They can eventually collapse and go into seizures, she said. Because dogs are so popular with Boulder-area residents, Reese said educating owners on hazardous products is important.
A spokeswoman for animal clinics in Florida and Texas said they were not aware of any incidents of xylitol poisoning.
"Clinicians should treat xylitol ingestion aggressively to avoid possible life-threatening consequences," wrote Dunayer and Gwaltney-Brant in the veterinary medicine journal. "Delaying treatment, even in a dog with no clinical signs, may increase the risk of fatal hepatic necrosis (liver damage)."